Speaking with Tim Giles, former NHVR CEO Sal Petroccitto recalls an interaction which occurred when he was spending some time at a weighing station on the highway.
“This driver came in, and he was a colourful operator, the staff knew him,” recalls Sal. “He said to me, that mob before you, they were useless!
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“As they were talking the driver said, ‘They wouldn’t do X and Y’, and one of the staff said, ‘You know, we’re the same staff. We’ve just got a different uniform. The difference is we’ve now got leadership that lets us do our job right, and lets us engage with you, lets us have a discussion’.
“We’re slowly moving it, we’re getting much more confidence among the drivers to actually engage with our staff. The approach that we kicked off a few years ago, around that whole educate, inform and enforce has really made a difference. I think that’s probably one of the proudest things we have achieved in that regulatory space. When I see 5,000 hours of education, well that’s potentially 5,000 blisters that might have been issued. It is making a difference, and we’re building that respect.”
There are, of course, unfulfilled hopes. Sal has worked hard to get Western Australia and the Northern Territory to come on board with the NHVR. It has been a conciliatory approach to the issue, emphasising the positives, rather that the negatives, the NHVR is learning from effective systems in WA. There are now coordinated initiatives and data sharing but no talk of integration into a single regulator, just yet.
Productivity
“Do not attack my people who are trying to do a job in a really difficult environment, in a framework that we inherited,” says Sal. “If you’ve got a gripe, have the gripe at the system, because that’s what’s failing. Not the organisation that is busting their arse to try and make it better.
“We’re the only regulatory body that has a productivity remit, and I think it’s the biggest success factor from the way the law was structured, giving the regulator the ability to pursue productivity as well as the enforcement of compliance and safety.
“We’ve been able to show industry that through a safety lens, productivity can be delivered, that a productive operator is a safe operator. I’m pro common sense. If I can give an operator an outcome that actually allows them to be productive, I know that they’re going to invest in better safety.
“The win there is two fold. You have a win because you’ve got a safer operator, they’re probably treating your infrastructure better. I have a win because I’ve got an operator that’s now wanting to be more compliant. Isn’t that the measure of success? They’re also making more money, which means that they might then look at the next truck and the next safety feature.”
Chain of Responsibility is a complex issue and the NHVR have been unable to get one of those impactful CoR prosecutions which would really make the big freight customers sit up and take more notice of their effect on safety in the trucking industry.
Sal also hopes the NHVR Portal will continue to deliver great functionality for industry.
“We’ve got defects in the portal, we’ve got the compliance module in the portal, and it is now becoming a real industry focused hub,” says Sal. “I think it’ll start to see value, and the operators will see value. So that’s working through. I think for us, that’s how we start to progress.
“The next iteration will be around the discussions we have had around chain of responsibility, around where the primary duties go, where the focus needs to be, and it needs to move away from the driver to the chain, and that’s a trajectory that we wanted to focus on.”
Super
When Sal first came to the post of CEO, a well-known Victorian livestock transport personality walked in and told Sal, ‘don’t worry about your superannuation, you’re not going to be here long enough to cash it in’. Sal took it on the chin, but does remind his critic, when he sees him, that his super is looking pretty good right now.
“If industry is definitely trying to do the right thing, we’ll acknowledge that, but we’ve also got a job to do if there’s a safety risk, and I think everyone would expect us to do that,” says Sal.
“We can collectively work together to deliver a better outcome for industry. Whether they like me for it or not, I don’t know, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”
The search is on for a successor, with big boots to fill.
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